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Country
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GB
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Language of name of institution
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eng
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Contact information: postal address
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Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU London
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Contact information: phone number
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0044 020 8876 3444
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Reference number
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CO 1
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (official language of the state)
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Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers (General Series)
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Language of title
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eng
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Creator / accumulator
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Privy Council
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Date(s)
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1574/1757
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Language(s)
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eng
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Extent
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69 volumes
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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This collection is part of the subdivision of the Colonial Office fonds that comprises correspondence with the colonies, entry books, and registers of correspondence relating to the administration of individual colonies, as well as a few records of governments of colonial and mandated territories that were sent to London for various reasons. It includes documentation related
to the American and West Indian colonies and contains some records of the Board of Trade. It virtually ends in 1688, after which date most of the American papers are to be found in CO 5 (Board of Trade and Secretaries of State: America and West Indies, Original Correspondence), and the West Indian ones in CO 318 (Colonial Office and Predecessors: West Indies Original Correspondence) and under the various colonies.
Information on Sephardic Jews settled in British Colonial America and the Caribbean can be found in the numerous records contained in this series. Some examples are the following:
CO 1/15: petition of Jacob Jeosua Bueno Enriques, a Jamaican Jew, to the King, for a license to work a copper mine in Jamaica if he can discover it. He has heard about this mine from a former Spanish resident on the island, c. 1661 (no. 74). This petition is followed by a report of the Council for Foreign Plantations to the King on the pros and cons of improving the rights and privileges of the Jews in Jamaica for the development of the island's trade. July 24, 1661 (no. 75). Bueno Henriques' petition was published by Friedenwald (1897).
CO 1/18, no. 68: letter from Col. Thomas Lynch to Lord Arlington mentioning a gold-finding Jew named Abram Israel de Pisa who had sailed for England, and left in Jamaica ore and directions to find gold. May 25, 1664.
CO 1/21, no. 170: Observations on Barbados, including on an alleged Jews plot against English interests in the island. 1667. See Calendar State Papers 5.
CO 1/23, no. 4: order of the King to seize two ships laden for Barbados on account of Jews and others of Amsterdam, with an annexed letter regarding the same subject. December 1668. On the same subject, see also CO 1/24, no. 4.
CO 1/28, no. 63: petition of the merchants of Port Royal to Sir Thomas Lynch, Governor of Jamaica, complaining about the inconveniences of the great number of Jews who daily resort to Jamaica and trade there. June 11, 1672.
CO 1/36, no. 23: order of the King in Council, on a petition of Aaron de Sylva, Isaac Pereira, and Jews living in Surinam, who were made free denizens by letters patent to leave Surinam with their servants and belongings freely to any English colony. February 11, 1676. Other documentation on the Dutch occupation of Surinam and the leaving of British subjects of Jewish origin are in CO 35, no. 28, CO 36, no. 74.
CO 1/37, no. 22: letter from Jonathan Atkins, Governor of Barbados, to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, mentioning, among other matters, that there were not more than 30 Jewish families of Dutch extraction from Brazil. Atkins mentions that they were very poor but the "the better sort" have been made denizens. July 4, 1676. See Calendar of State Papers 9.
CO 1/44: includes the Barbados Census of 1680, the most comprehensive surviving census of any English colony in the 17th century, which refers to several Jews living on the island. Samuel (1932) published a survey of these Jewish settlers. See also Hotten (1874) and Adler (1893).
CO 1/45, fols. 96-107: Census of Port Royal of 1680, which includes references to Jews living in this Jamaica port. Published in Faber (1998).
CO 1/47, no. 6: petition of certain inhabitants of Barbados to the Assembly, requesting it to present to Sir Richard Dutton "the barbarous inhumanity and subtle conspiracy of the Jewish nation in general against all Christendom, and particularly against England". June 9, 1681.
CO 1/49, no. 59: letter from Richard Dutton to Lords of Trade and Plantations, reporting a trial involving Anthony Rodriguez, a Jew who provided guns to the English army. November 15, 1682. More on this case in CO 1/48, no. 59.
CO 1/51, nos. 76-77: letter from Benjamin Baruch Carvallo, from Curaçao to Thomas Lynch, describing how he left Jamaica on June 30, 1683, how he was taken off Curaçao by a Spanish vessel with a commission from the Governor of Havana, and how he was cruelly treated, tortured, and robbed by these pirates, for which he craves the Governor's help for redress. August 29, 1683. More on this case in CO 1/53, no. 101.
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Archival history
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Until the early 19th century, the papers for each colony were stored loose in roughly chronological order. From then until 1926, they were bound in volumes by colony in order of registration under various broad divisions: governor (or dispatches), offices (i.e. correspondence with other departments), individuals, etc. In 1926, these volumes gave way to numbered subject files. At first, the numbers allocated to each colony and subject changed each year, but from 1935 to 1951, standard numbers were employed.
As the importance of the subject departments grew, the amount of correspondence relating strictly to any particular country declined. Accordingly, between 1951 and 1953, the Colonial Office reorganised its registry, arranging country correspondence into single classes for each geographical department.
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(source: The National Archives: Correspondence with the colonies, entry books and registers of correspondence)
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Administrative / Biographical history
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Before 1696 matters concerning the colonies were dealt with primarily by the Privy Council and its committees. The first special body convened to advise on colonial (plantation) questions was the Commission of Trade set up in 1625. From 1696 onwards, colonial affairs were the responsibility of the Board of Trade and the secretaries of state in partnership.
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(source: The National Archives website)
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System of arrangement
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Records are arranged chronologically.
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Access, restrictions
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Digital copies of selected records can be accessed online. Specific links for the relevant documents are provided at piece or item level.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2023
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Bibliography
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Dunn, Richard S. 1969. “The Barbados Census of 1680: Profile of the Richest Colony in English America.” The William and Mary Quarterly 26 (1): 3–30.
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Faber, Eli. 2000. Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight. New York: New York University Press.
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Loker, Zvi, ed. 1991. Jews in the Caribbean: Evidence on the History of the Jews in the Caribbean Zone in Colonial Times. Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim, Institute for Research on the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage.
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Mirvis, Stanley. 2015. “The Alvares Family Patriarchs and the Place of Pre-1692 Port Royal in the Western Sephardic Diaspora.” American Jewish Archives Journal 67 (2): 1–45.
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Mirvis, Stanley. 2020. The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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Snyder, Holly. 2018. “The Pegs of a Wider Frame. Jewish Merchants in Anglo-Iberian Trade.” In Entangled Empires: The Anglo-Iberian Atlantic, 1500-1830, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, 105–23. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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Yogev, Gedalia. 1978. Diamonds and Coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-Century Trade. Leicester: Leicester University Press.
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Published primary sources
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Adler, Cyrus. 1893. “Jews in the American Plantations between 1600-1700.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 1: 105–8.
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Faber, Eli. 1998. Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight. New York: New York University Press.
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Friedenwald, Herbert. 1897. “Material for the History of the Jews in the British West Indies.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 5: 45–101. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058618.
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Hollander, J. H. 1897. “Documents Relating to the Attempted Departure of the Jews from Surinam in 1675.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 6: 9–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058636.
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Hotten, John Camden. 1874. The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went From Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. New York: Empire State Book Co.
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Sainsbury, W Noel, J W Fortescue, Cecil Headlam, Cecil Newton, Arthur Percival, and K G Davis, eds. 1860. Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies. 46 vols. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
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Samuel, Wilfred S. 1932. “A Review of the Jewish Colonists in Barbados in the Year 1680.” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 13: 1–111.
